Dental appliances such as dentures, retainers and mouth guards are a necessity for many people. Normal use of such appliances often requires the user to wear the appliance for several hours or more each day. During such normal use, bacteria from the common flora of the human mouth collect on the appliance by adhering to its irregular surface. Proper care and maintenance of the appliance will remove this bacteria and keep the appliance fresh and in good condition. However, proper care and maintenance of such appliances can be a nuisance for their users. A lack of such care can lead to, among other things, an unpleasant odor and taste due to a build up of bacteria on the appliance and neglect of the appliance itself. Neglect of the appliance can cause problems with the proper mechanical operation of the appliance, and thus, the appliance will not function as intended and the user ultimately loses the benefit of the appliance.
Methods for cleaning dental appliances commonly involve the user brushing the appliance with a toothbrush and toothpaste or other dentifrice. Other methods involve soaking the appliance in a specially formulated dentifrice. The dentifrice is usually contained in an ordinary drinking glass, and the appliance is placed in the glass to soak for a given period of time in the dentifrice. These methods, however, require the user to retrieve the appliance from the glass with his or her bare hands or to "fish" the appliance out of the glass using some form of an elongated object. Either method can be time consuming, inconvenient and somewhat messy. Alternative methods of and apparatus for cleaning dental appliances are therefore a useful improvement to the fields of dentistry and orthodontics.